Lake Placid Summit Classic: Day 6 Notes, Photos

The talent level in the Men’s Open division at the Lake Placid Summit Classic continues to increase every year, and a host of stud players are helping to celebrate the event’s 25th Anniversary in this hotly contested bracket. Saturday brought sunny skies and the hottest temperatures of the week to the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, heading into Championship Sunday. And while current and recent NCAA stars dominated the Men’s Open semifinals, it was an Oscar winner who maybe had the biggest day, up in the Men’s Masters 1 division.

Power-Tek advanced past Breakaway to make its fifth Men’s Open championship game in the last six years. The Colgate-based squad took out Breakaway 10-5 in the first Men’s Open semifinal, putting up a nice offensive showing on former North Carolina and New York Lizards goalie Chris Madalon. Johns Hopkins grad Chase Winter led the way with three goals and an assist, and Chris Laurita (Stevens) added two. Jim Carroll (Colgate) was huge on face-offs and goalie Brandon Burke, last year’s Patriot League Rookie of the Year for Colgate, was huge in the second half.

Matt Clarkson, Jimmy Ryan, Matt and Chris Lalli, Kevin Boyle, Colin Hulme and Ryan Walsh have been huge for this squad in 2014, helping to step up to fill the big shoes of 2012 Lake Placid MVP Kevin Colleluori, who broke his thumb and couldn’t play this year and had to step into a GM role.

In the second Men’s Open semifinal, Long Island-based Select Sector SPDRs held off Baltimore-based 1 Lacrosse, 7-5. Goalie John Carroll (Albany) was huge for SPDRs, along with rising Denver freshman Trevor Baptiste on face-offs and Loyola-grad Sean O’Sullivan (4G) and Notre Dame’s Matt Kavanagh (2G) on offense. Tom Compitello (Stony Brook) added a goal, while Steve Romano (Hofstra), Mike Bedford (LIU Post) and Derek Muzio (Dowling) were huge on defense in holding off a 1 Lacrosse offense that included Duke’s Deemer Class and Case Matheis and Villanova’s John Kluh.

In the first Men’s Masters 1 Semifinal, Defending Champ Graph-Tex won comfortably over a solid Black and Blue Jays team 10-4. Cornell associate head coach Pete Milliman (Gettysburg), Dan Holdridge (Le Moyne) and Seth Goldberg (Yale) led Graph Tex’s offense, while RIT head coach Jake Coon (UMass) and the D really clamped down in holding Black and Blue scoreless after the first half.

In the second Master’s 1 semifinal, it was a surprise performance from Academy Award-winning producer Anthony Katagas, who played goalie for Western New England and is still a lacrosse junkie, that sparked Motive Pure over the Gray’d Danes. Katagas stepped up in goal in place of Placid mainstay Mike Zoanetti and held off the Danes 12-4. Katagas, who won the Oscar for 12 Years a Slave in 2014, made about a half-dozen highlight-reel saves for Motive Pure, while Damien Davis held down the D, Jamie Hanford won a ton of face-offs, and Austin Garrison, B.J. Prager, Mike Regan and Chris Massey paced the offense.

Stay tuned to InsideLacrosse.com on Sunday for all the championship action from Lake Placid. N.Y.

—JOHN JILOTY

Tommy Gilligan has more action shots from the sixth day of the 25th year of the Lake Placid Summit Classic above. Below are the standings at Lake Placid as of late Saturday night as well as all of the matchups and times of each division championship to be held Sunday.